11 Things You Didn’t Know About Bruce Arena

Excellent bit of journalism on the Sports Illustrated website by Grant Wahl, in which he profiles Bruce Arena under the headline “The Best Coach Ever?”

You can read the whole thing by clicking here (and I recommend you do) but for readers with short attention spans, here are the highlights:

1. Arena nearly missed out on the job to either Carlos Queiroz, Gérard Houllier, Ruud Gullit, Johan Cruyff, Andy Roxburgh, Bora Milutinovic (again) or Carlos Alberto Parreira, but outgoing US Soccer President Alan Rothenberg allowed Bob Contiguglia to make the decision. Contiguglia wanted an American coach.

2. Arena will sign on for four more years after this World Cup, barring a complete disaster or unprecedented success (semi-finals onwards). I’m not so sure about this. If Bruce gets an offer to coach in Europe I think he’ll take it.

3. Eddie Pope and Landon Donovan have both said Arena is a “genius.”

4. Arena thinks the Frings handball was definitely a penalty: “Frings moved his hand a little bit and prevented the ball from going in the goal. It’s a penalty kick and a red card.”

5. Arena has two regrets from 2002 (apart from the Frings handball, obviously). They are:
a) Picking Hejduk over David Regis against Poland: “I wanted to sit Frankie Hejduk because I didn’t think Frankie would have the discipline not to get a yellow card, and naturally he didn’t and sat out against Mexico.”
b) Not playing Kasey Keller: “I know Kasey, and he could easily have played in any of those games, and we would have been equally successful.

6. Arena picks his 23 based on personality as well as talent. We already knew this one, but Eddie Pope says the biggest difference between ‘98 and ‘02 was chemistry, not talent.

7. Guus Hiddink isn’t Bruce Arena (we knew this one too). According to DaMarcus Beasley, Arena is more friendly: “I’m not saying one’s bad or one’s good. But with Bruce I can make jokes about him and he makes fun of me. With Hiddink we may go a week without saying hello.”

8. Arena earned some respect in 2002. Portugal’s Luis Figo said “To tell you the truth, they surprised us. We were at fault a bit, too, but to beat the United States in that game was difficult because they were so well prepared.”

9. Arena’s teams use the soccer equivalent of Bruce Pearl’s pressure defenses with Tennessee basketball. “When we get to the World Cup, we’re going to win games because we’re very good defensively,” Arena says. “That’s the hallmark of our team, so pressuring the ball is critical … Because we’re not preparing to beat El Salvador, we’re preparing to beat Brazil one day. That’s the only way we’re going to do that right now. We’re not going to beat them 4-3.”

10. Jürgen Klinsmann is a big Arena fan. Klinsmann did what he calls a coaching “internship” with Arena in January 2004: “I was there in my U.S. tracksuit next to him, and he gave me some jobs to do,” says Klinsmann. “Everything is planned perfectly. Practice preparation, execution of the practice sessions, the long-term thoughts he always has in mind.”

11. Arena might already be the longest-serving national-team coach on the planet. Arena was appointed October 27, 1998. The only other coach appointed in 1998 was San Marino’s Giampaolo Mazza, but no one is sure of the exact date.

The article is actually the unused bits of another article in this weeks Sports Illustrated, though you need to be a subscriber to read it on-line. If I can get hold of a copy I’ll let you know what’s in there.